Changes in ksh2020?

[Jeffery Small]

Xubuntu 20.04

Ksh using vi editing mode

I've used ksh for 40+ years now,  I recently noticed a change in behavior dating back a few months.  Only today did I discover that I'm using ksh2020 (never heard of it before!) rather than ksh93 which is what I had the last time I looked.  Ksh93 is no longer listed in the synaptic package manager list.

My issue is that now, when you type a command that has a syntax error, the command is NOT added to the command history, and therefore, it isn't available to recall for editing.  For example:

169-> for i in * do echo $i ; done

ksh: syntax error: `done' unexpected

169->

i intentionally left off the semicolon before the "do" and the command fails.  But you can see that the history number has not incremented and the command cannot be recalled to be edited.  This is not what used to happen and violates 40 years of editing muscle memory!

Is there a method of getting these commands back onto the history list?  I hope so!  :-)

Thanks for any insights you can offer.

[Jeffery Small]

P.S.:  If ksh93 is still available, why doesn't it show up in synaptic?

https://packages.ubuntu.com/focal/amd64/ksh93/download

[Andras Farkas]

At one point, a few people de facto hijacked the AT&T github for
KornShell and made a buggy ksh2020 out of ksh93v-. Some OSes and
distros (unfortunately) switched to their ksh2020 from ksh93u+.
Eventually, AT&T took control over the GitHub repository again moved
it back to ksh93u+.
Some distros have moved the ksh package back to ksh93u+ and you should
encourage yours to do so.

At the very least, there should be separate ksh93 and ksh2020
packages. ksh2020 isn't a successor for ksh93 despite the similar
names.
That advice is what you should direct at Xubuntu, that you'd like
ksh93u+ back and that no-one is supporting, maintaining, or developing
ksh2020 (to my knowledge at least, which may be wrong!)
Of course, ksh93u+ itself isn't maintained or developed either, but it
works better.
There's also a promising fork of ksh93u+ that IS being developed:
https://github.com/ksh93/ksh

Your issue is a distro/packaging issue. Not sure whether you should
contact Xubuntu, Ubuntu, or Debian, but probably Xubuntu first.

Preliminary research shows this might be fixed in 20.10 (in which case
your problem might be fixed by upgrading)
https://packages.ubuntu.com/groovy/ksh
"2020.0.0+really93u+20120801-8"
> really93u+
If that's true, it should be easy to fix. :D

[Marc Wilson]

Ubuntu does ship ksh93.

[41] ubuntu $ lsb_release -a

No LSB modules are available.

Distributor ID: Ubuntu

Description: Ubuntu 20.04.2 LTS

Release: 20.04

Codename: focal

[42] ubuntu $ apt-cache search ksh | grep ^ksh

ksh - 2020 version of the AT&T Korn Shell

ksh93 - Real, AT&T version of the Korn shell

kshisen - Shisen-Sho solitaire game

kshutdown - advanced shut down utility for KDE

[43] ubuntu $ apt list ksh

Listing... Done

ksh/focal 2020.0.0-5 amd64

[44] ubuntu $ apt list ksh93

Listing... Done

ksh93/focal,now 93u+20120801-7 amd64 [installed]

[Jeffery Small]

Thanks for all the info.  I will try to track down the package maintainer and register the problem.  I will also try to reinstall ksh93.

Thanks for the help.

[Jeffery Small]

I did reinstall ksh93 and all is well!  Thanks again for the great information.

[Marc Wilson]

You might think about installing ksh93u+m, there are many bug fixes. :)  It builds easily on Ubuntu with clang.

https://github.com/ksh93/ksh